


Orkney Girls

by RobberBaroness



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Gen, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 4,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22452499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/pseuds/RobberBaroness
Summary: The daughters of Morgause and Lot were a formidable bunch.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

Morgause’s eldest was wild and brave and so charming even her father allowed her whatever she wanted- sword lessons, the freedom to run about the estate, even a delay in marriage. Morgause longed to warn her that this could not last, that sooner or later she would become a token in a political match, that she was not a son no matter how much Lot indulged her, but she could never bring herself to.

Morgause’s second was the fairest of the four, and she knew it. Flowing hair of spun gold like something out of a fairy tale, and she knew what to do with it. How to be beautiful. How to be observant. Morgause suspected she was far cleverer than she let anyone know.

Morgause’s third daughter was hard to call hers, for she always and only wanted her father’s attention. “You have a little Electra there,” said Morgan when she came to visit. “Which I suppose would make you Clytemnestra. Be careful with that one.” It was a cruel remark, typical of Morgan.

Morgause’s youngest would be hers, she vowed. Hers to protect as long as she could, hers to teach in gentility and kindness, hers to defend from the world as long as the world would allow her. The way her mother had raised her.

Morgause didn’t like to think about the child still stirring inside her. That was a problem she could wait to handle.


	2. Arrival at Camelot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is now a repository of fem!Orkney ficlets which may or may not go together. You're welcome. Also, thank you to tumblr user cukibola for the Orkney girl names.

Gowain was almost bouncing on her feet as she and her sisters approached the gates of Camelot.

“Guinevere is creating a special group of Queen’s Knights! If anyone will grant me the rank of knighthood, it’ll be her! Oh, for certain I’ll be a novelty and a joke, but I can ride better than anyone, and if she sees me demonstrate my skill by mid-day, she won’t have any reason to refuse my request! And what better knight protector for a queen than one you know won’t try to seduce her?”

Agrippine sneered.

“You’re ridiculous as always. If it’s power at the royal court you want, there are easier ways of going about it than blanketing yourself in armor and prancing about like a buffoon. Simply leave me alone in a room with a man and I’ll have him wrapped around my finger within the hour.”

Ever so innocently, Graeria spoke up.

“Is that why Lancelot ignores you while he laughs at every one of Gowain’s jokes?”

Agrippine’s nails were out as she lunged at her younger sister in a rage, and Gowain had to separate them bodily.

“If either of you do anything to embarrass me today,” she said through gritted teeth, “you’re both walking back to Orkney.”


	3. The Loathly Lady

“Water. Air. Food.”

“I’m serious, Gowain.”

“So am I!” Dame Gowain would have thrown up her hands if she wasn’t riding a horse. “I can’t tell you what women want just because I’m a woman, because women aren’t a single unified creature! I might as well ask you what men want. I still say you should just take a company of your best men and ambush Sir Gromer Somer Jour when he’s expecting you to answer his stupid riddle.”

King Arthur shook his head.

“After all the speeches I’ve given to my knights about honor?”

“Sod it. It’s not honorable to spring a trap upon the high king, either.”

Her uncle smiled.

“What would your betrothed have to say about you talking like that?”

“My- oh, you mean Lancelot. He’s not my betrothed. I’ll probably say yes if he asks, but if he hasn’t asked already I doubt he will in the future.” She did not add ‘because as much as he loves me, he loves your wife even more, and I only pray to god she doesn’t reciprocate.’ It seemed like a bad time.

“King Arthur!” called a creaking voice from the forest. “Dame Gowain!” A woman stepped forward- well, she was probably a woman. Gowain’s first instinct had been that she was some sort of fairy hag, a wild witch of the woods, the sort who lived in a cave and ate naughty children. On second glance, though, she didn’t look like she’d be much of a threat to any kind of children. She looked friendly.

Arthur pulled his horse to a stop, and the strange woman continued.

“I will tell you the answer you seek, but you must give me something in return…”

“Another magical bargain,” the king muttered. “I don’t have time for this-”

“No, no,” said Gowain, leaning forward with a smile. “I want to hear what she has to say!”


	4. Murder

Agrippine laughed and laughed as she slit the knight’s throat. Graeria was quieter but her knife to the back of a second knight was just as deadly. The women might have been worried about their targets’ allies under ordinary circumstances, but alone in the woods against unarmored men? No one would find them, and no one would suspect them.

It had all been over a debate about which was the better of the queen’s personal knights, Sir Lancelot or Dame Gowain. No matter how hard their older sister tried, despite the fact that she was undoubtedly the best horse rider in all of Camelot, no matter that in daylight she shone and that by midday she possessed the strength of someone twice her size, it would never be enough for the common soldiery. She would always be a joke to them, not a real knight like Lancelot.

Agrippine’s laughter died down as she wiped her bloody blade on the grass.

“Let no one say the blood of Orkney is weaker than that of France!” she said, though there was no one to hear her other than her younger sister. But Graeria grinned in response nonetheless.

“Have you done this before?” she asked. “Ambushes? Murders?”

“None of your business,” Agrippine replied with a smile. “And this wasn’t murder. It was a defense of the family name. Gowain cannot be slandered by men unfit to kiss the hem of her skirt.”

Actually speaking the name Gowain- the sister they had supposedly been defending- brought the mood to a sudden sour stop.

“She’s going to kill us for this, isn’t she?” asked Graeria.

“Absolutely,” said Agrippine. “Bloody hell. I really should have thought this out better beforehand.”


	5. Lancelot

“I’ll likely never marry,” Gowain said as she and Lancelot walked through the courtyard. “I suppose you won’t, either.”

It was a pointed statement, but Lancelot did not take it as an insult or a jab.

“No, I suppose not. We should have solved our problems long ago and married each other.” He paused and looked at her. “We still could. I wouldn’t try and wrest control of Orkney from you. Any children we had would be of your line.”

“Hmm.” Gowain hadn’t had any marriage proposals since she’d become Dame Gowain of the Round Table, but she did regularly carry a favor into tournaments- the favor of Ragnelle, her dearest lady and bedroom companion. All the court knew of Ragnelle was that Gowain had somehow broken a curse set upon her, and that she was said to spurn all men because they could not compare to Gowain.

“You wouldn’t mind what I had with Ragnelle?” she asked Lancelot, and he shook his head.

“So long as I never had to witness it or know when it was happening.”

“And do you think I would extend the same privilege to you? Do you think I would look the other way when you snuck off to meet Guinevere or Arthur or Galeholt?”

Lancelot couldn’t reply to that.

“And that’s why I’ll never marry,” Gowain said. “I could never deceive a husband about Ragnelle, and I could never stand to be deceived in turn. I’m sure some part of you loves me, and some part of me loves you too, but I could not stand to be a shield for you, to help your deceptions. I don’t blame you for them, I know you love all your darlings equally, but I can’t be a part of it.”

She sighed.

“I suppose I’ll have to have a bastard, or let the throne of Orkney go to Agrippine’s son when she has one. Dear Christ, I can’t think what kind of a mother she’ll be. Our own mother tried her very best, I’m sure, and look how we all turned out.”

Lancelot put his hand on her shoulder.

“You turned out beautifully.”

She couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’ll tell Gracia you said that. I think she’ll be insensible for days.”


	6. Blood Feud

Gowain placed the head of King Pellinore on the table, ignoring Gracia’s scream of fright and Agrippine’s gasp of indignation.

“This. Ends. Here.”

Gowain looked at her sisters, most of whom were still transfixed by the disembodied head of their mortal enemy.

“I mean it,” Gowain went on. “This ends here. The man who killed our father and terrorized maidens across the countryside is dead, and unless we want to go to war with all of Camelot, this ends here. Our quarrel was not with Tor, or Percival, or Lamorak, or Palomides. The feud is ended today because I say it is.”

“What if one of them attacks us?” Morsure asked quietly.

“Oh, don’t try and twist my words. Of course we can defend ourselves, if you’re really living in terror of Percival of all people coming at you with an axe. But there is no more feud as of this day.”

Agrippine rolled her eyes.

“I don’t know why we’re even having this discussion,” she said. “You’re the one who goes around cutting peoples’ heads off, not any of us. What, did you expect me to go out in my gown and slippers and challenge Palomides to single combat?”

Gowain’s eyes narrowed, but she wasn’t about to accuse her sisters of anything. Not without proof, anyway.

“There are many ways to destroy a man without wielding a blade,” she said at last. “And I want everyone’s word that Pellinore’s sons and allies will not be harmed. Are we agreed?”

All the sisters mumbled something along the lines of assent. It was only Graeria who did not meet Gowain’s eyes as she said it. In the pocket of her gown, she quietly felt for a tiny vial of poison.


	7. Knight of the Kitchen

Gowain pulled Gracia aside as soon as the hall was empty and lowered her voice as much as was possible without being entirely silent.

“Gracia! What are you doing?”

Gracia looked around nervously, as if expecting someone to walk in on them in any way.

“Don’t call me that!” she pleaded. “No one here knows I’m a girl!”

“Kay knows. Why do you think he calls you Lady Hands? And what are you doing in the kitchens, anyway? If you want to be a knight, I can introduce you to Guinevere, and you can train as my squire.”

“No!” Gracia’s face was pale with fright. “No, I don’t want to be open just yet. Lancelot’s training me when I’m not in the kitchen. I don’t want to announce myself as a lady knight. I want to prove myself first and then, once they all accept me, I can reveal myself as a woman and they won’t be able to snicker.”

Oh Gracia, Gowain thought. Her poor sister. They would always snicker, didn’t she see? There was no secret path to being accepted. She’d earned her own spurs a million times over, and there were still knights who would sneer at her- especially if she’d beaten them. Feeling tricked wasn’t going to make the Knights of the Round Table feel any more accommodating towards Gracia.

But she looked at her sister’s face. She wanted this so much…

“Alright,” Gowain sighed. “Work as hard as you can. Kay’s always spoiling for a fight, but if comes down to it you can trust him. You can trust Lancelot as well, but don’t let him break your heart. And if anyone tries to hurt you, come to me.”

Gracia lifted her chin in a childish display of courage.

“I can take care of myself, Gowain!”

“Of course you can,” her older sister sighed. God help this family.


	8. Prince Maleagant

The feast had been going about as well as Agrippine could have expected, given that her target was seated by the queen. She’d still found plenty of opportunities to dance with Prince Maleagant, to brush beside him when she passed by, to smile and pretend to blush when he looked in her direction. True, he danced most of his attention on Queen Guinevere, but that was to be expected- flattery towards the high queen was no true sign of interest. By the end of the feast, she would be one step closer to a royal betrothal.

Or at least she would have been if Gowain hadn’t ruined everything.

She didn’t know what it was that Maleagant leaned in and whispered to her sister, but the next thing anyone knew, Gowain had grabbed the prince by his hair and slammed him down onto the table, her free hand holding a dagger at his throat. Agrippine turned and hoped that the oncoming spray of blood wouldn’t ruin her newest gown…but it didn’t come. Gowain continued to hold Maleagant at the point of a dagger, but she was clearly holding herself back. Perhaps it had finally gotten through her thick head that she couldn’t simply go chopping off heads at every party the king threw.

Queen Guinevere broke the shocked silence in the hall.

“Gowain, enough! For shame, drawing arms at a peaceful gathering. Prince Maleagant, I will thank you not to disrespect my ladies, especially not in my presence.”

Gowain let go of Maleagant, and he lifted up his head, the two of them still glaring poisonous arrows at each other.

“Musicians!” Guinevere called. “I gave no command for you to stop playing.”

And slowly, slowly, the band struck up again and the level of chatter grew back to normal. Gowain was the only one who was no longer participating, making a curt apology to her queen and striding from the hall.

“Excellent work!” Agrippine hissed to her as she passed. “I don’t care how lewd his proposition was, you should have laughed and pretended it was a joke! Now he’ll never court me!”

“You don’t want him,” Gowain growled as she stalked away. “Trust me.”


	9. Matricide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for the aftermath of violence in this one.

It was Morsure who found Graeria sitting at their mother’s bedside, rocking back and forth, covered in blood. She was mumbling something unclear over and over, and Morsure felt faint as she approached her. Graeria didn’t even look up when approached, she just kept rocking and mumbling until Morsure was close enough to see what was on Morgause’s bed.

When she saw, she screamed. It seemed for all the world, no matter how hard she tried, that she could not stop screaming.

Gowain, Agrippine and Gracia came racing to her aid. They found one sister soaked in gore and near insensible, another collapsed against the wall screaming her throat hoarse, and no one who could tell them what had happened.

It was Gowain who finally stepped forward and took a look at the bed. Morgause lay there in her nightgown, once white and now red. Her throat had been cut as cleanly as if she’d been handled by a butcher.

Morsure’s screams finally died into a quiet sob. Gracia crossed herself and Agrippine covered her face with her hands. Gowain could only steady herself because her sisters needed her now. She couldn’t let them down. Not now.

Graeria’s mumbling finally became clear.

“Lamorak, Lamorak…”

Gowain put a hand on her sister’s shoulder.

“Did Lamorak do this?”

Graeria gave an unsteady nod.

“He was here…I saw him…I saw him with mother…and then she was dead.”

Gowain thought her heart was going to stop.

“Because of me,” Gowain said. “Because I killed his father. Because I said the feud was over, and he was not to be harmed.”

Graeria seemed to be getting ahold of herself.

“Yes. That’s it. He said so. He let me live because…because he wanted a witness. He wanted me to tell you. He wanted us all to know the consequences of killing Pellinore.”

Just when they thought the room was getting quiet, Morsure took another look at her mother’s body and a new flood of tears drenched her face. Through them, she could see her sisters- Graeria, half-mad; Gowain, cold with rage; Gracia, leaning down to comfort Graeria, to no avail; finally Agrippine, for once in her life allowing others to see her cry.

If there was one thing Morsure had learned from her mother, it was how to tell if another person was lying. To her mild surprise, felt distantly through her horror, she saw that Agrippine’s grief was not feigned.

It never even occurred to Morsure to wonder if Graeria was lying.


	10. Gringolet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to cukibola for putting that picture of a unicorn in Gowain’s moodboard and stirring this idea. Also, this should go towards the beginning of this timeline but whatever, these aren’t in any real order.

Agrippine and Morsure waited for the knights to return from hunting the unicorn, one with boredom and the other with sorrow.

“I don’t understand it!” Morsure was saying as she sniffled. “The unicorn hasn’t hurt anyone! It just exists, and now all the righteous knights want to kill it? It isn’t fair!”

“That’s the world,” Agrippine said with hardly a glance at her younger sister. “You’re either the hunter or the hunted, you have to pick a side at some point. Oh, stop looking so miserable,” she added when this failed to cheer Morsure. “They never catch it. We’re just waiting for them to tire themselves out, then they’ll come back and drink and brag about how they almost caught it. It’s the same every time someone spots the unicorn.”

Sometimes Agrippine thought she’d like to slit the damn unicorn’s throat herself, for all the fuss it had caused over the years.

“I suppose it could be worse,” she contemplated. “We could be back home listening to Gowain tell that story about how she set fire to a few pirates again…”

Simply speaking of Gowain seemed to conjure her out of the forest. Agrippine could hardly see at first, given how crowds of onlookers had swarmed around her, but it was clear that she had returned triumphant. Wonderful. Now she’d turn killing the unicorn into another of her interminable stories…

…no. She was _riding_ the unicorn.

The same onlookers who had mocked Gowain for thinking she could hunt with men were now singing her praises, the Maiden Knight who caught the unicorn with purity and love rather than with violence. Morsure was certainly happier, but Agrippine’s eyes narrowed.

“I think Gringolet is a good name for him,” Gowain was saying to Morsure, who was over the moon with delight as the strange beast allowed her to pet its hair. “You can have my old horse.”

When Gowain dismounted and went to embrace her sisters, Agrippine took the opportunity to whisper into her ear.

“If you’re a virgin, I’m the Blessed Mary herself.”

Gowain only grinned.

“You’ve got me there. Turns out tale-tellers care more about that sort of thing than unicorns do.”

Gringolet nuzzled her affectionately.

“You just have to be good with animals.”


	11. A-Maying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a friend who wanted more of Maleagant and Gowain interacting. Warnings for, well, exactly that.

It took three men to restrain Gracia, and near half Maleagant’s men to restrain Gowain- and even then, both had been unarmed (and the bastard had waited as late in the day as possible, when the sun was beginning to set behind the clouds.) The queen and all her ladies had been taken by surprise gathering flowers for the May Day celebration; Graeria had fainted, Morsure was staring sullenly at her captors, and Agrippine was being a model prisoner. Maleagant laughed at the sight of all of them.

“My beloved Guinevere,” he said to the queen, who held her head and looked at him with cold, hateful eyes.

“There is no need to take my ladies as well,” she said, regally enough in tone that it did not sound as if she was begging. Maleagant ignored her plea, then turned to Gowain, still fighting furiously in her bonds.

“The king’s wife and the king’s whore,” he said idly. “I wonder which one Arthur will be desperate to get back?”

“You had better kill me now,” Gowain snarled at him, looking incongruously lovely with flowers in her hair. “Because if you don’t, I’m going to escape, and I’m going to bring back Lancelot and a full company of knights with me, and then I’ll personally rip the flesh from your bones with my teeth.”

Maleagant caressed her cheek, and she bit down on his finger when it brushed her lips. He shrieked and she laughed, spitting blood.

“I didn’t need to wait, did I?” Gowain taunted him. Maleagant reached back to strike her, and she battered her head into his shoulder like a blunt instrument.

“When I said to secure them all, I meant it!” Maleagant called to his men. “Be sure Queen Guinevere is comfortable and well-treated. As for this one-” He glared at Gowain- “have her room guarded at all times, by heavily armed and armored men.”

“Are you that afraid?” Gowain asked. “You should be.” There was still a vicious smile on her face as they dragged her away.


	12. The King's Bastard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, we’ll get back to that cliffhanger eventually, but since we’re all thinking about Mordred right now…

Agrippine found Morsure in the garden at night, looking up at the sky, doing nothing to protect herself from the rain. Her hair was sogging and pressed into the skin of her face, making her look like one of the less-glamorous water nymphs. She shivered, but showed no signs of moving from her spot.

“You’re going to catch your death, as Mother used to say,” Agrippine called, but Morsure didn’t move.

“Did you know?” she asked her sister in a voice that could barely be heard through the rain.

“Know what?”

“I…I saw a hermit at the tournament today,” Morsure said.

“Can’t have been a very good hermit if he went to tournaments.”

“He said I was…he said…I tried to tell myself that he was mad, but it felt so true. He said that I was the king’s bastard, sired upon his on sister, that I was a cursed maiden, and that it would have been better if I’d never been born.”

Agrippine pulled her cloak about her, protecting her own delicate golden curls from the downpour, and stepped out beside her sister.

“Did you know?” Morsure repeated.

“We knew mother had affairs, and we knew she was fond of Arthur. Never really put the two together before now. But if a hermit says you're born of incest and deception, then it must be true.” Agrippine said her remarks with a roll of her eyes, but it hardly seemed to even reach Morsure.

“I really am cursed,” she said shakily. “I don’t know why King Arthur didn’t just have me drowned at birth.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Agrippine said lightly. “You’ve got a claim on the crown now. Not a very strong claim, I’ll admit- he’d have to acknowledge you as his child to get you officially named heir, and even then it would all be over if Guinevere had a son, but marry a man who brings enough soldiers to your estate and the claim could be a lot stronger. Especially if there was suspicion that Guinevere’s child hadn’t been Arthur’s,” she added as an afterthought.

“I don’t care about the damn crown!”

“Yes you do. Everyone does.” Agrippine looked up at the rainy sky. “Stay out here if you want, but you’ll be doing that job of drowning yourself all on your own.”

Even Morsure laughed a little at that, and allowed herself to be guided back into the castle.


	13. Guinevere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More jumping around in time, that's how we do things here

Of course Guinevere was not being held in any sort of dungeon awaiting trial, but under house arrest in her own quarters, still attended by her servants. Morsure had known this would be the case- no queen was treated like a common criminal in her own castle- but the sight of her looking so well was still a shock. She had been prepared to offer sympathy, but now she did not know how to start.

“Morsure!” the queen called out, and raced over to embrace the girl. “I never thought you would visit me, not after- not after everything that has happened. It might even threaten your own reputation.”

“Nothing bad will happen to you, I’m sure of it,” Morsure responded. “Arthur still cares for you, after all.”

“He shouldn’t...and Lancelot?”

“Gowain rode off to fight him. With a full company of men, in case he won’t accept single combat.”

Guinevere shook her head frantically.

“You must not let them do this! I pray you, speak to Arthur. He will listen to you. Tell him it was all my doing. I was like Potiphar’s wife, I was the one who entrapped Lancelot, he never meant to betray anyone!”

Morsure stepped back suddenly, a dreadful look on her face. She was already looking paler than usual owing to her mourning garb, but now she looked as if she had witnessed a murder anew.

“I came here to forgive you,” she said very softly. “And you ask me for his life? A _knight_ who murdered three _unarmed women_ so that he might escape justice? My sisters? Even Gracia, who loved him? You ask me to intervene on his behalf?”

Morsure’s face seemed to change again. Her delicate features took on a hard, cold quality they had never seemed to have before.

“I hope you both die,” she said before leaving Guinevere in her rooms.


End file.
